Accounting for creatives

Doing the accounts might not be your favorite pastime, but you’ll find it a lot easier after this module. You never know, you might even start enjoying it! But don’t worry, that doesn’t mean you have to choose to do it all yourself – you can make good use of your new knowledge working alongside your accountant.

In this online series, teacher Richard van Os guides you along all aspects of doing accounts for a beginning freelancer. Especially made for entrepreneurs in the creative business. Not too much or too little information and all in your own pace and time.

Part 1 | A new company

In this first part of the series, you'll see why accounting needs to be done. And what we'll learn in this course. We'll introduce our example company Theater Applaus from John van den Ende, a starting freelancer in the cultural sector.

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Part 2 | the opening balance

In part two, we introduce the most important document in your accountancy: the balance. The entire accountancy is based in keeping your balance up to date. It is the start and finish of every administration.

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Part 3 | Sales

In order to sustain a healthy business, something must be sold. This could be a product, but for most freelancers it's time. How do you process these sales in your administration, and what is a tender and an invoice?

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Part 4 | Purchases

To manage a company, sometimes money must be spent. These could be running costs, such as a train ticket. Or investments for multiple years, such as a laptop. This is where you learn how to deal with your purchases in your administration.

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Part 5 | Value added tax

Always difficult: what are taxes exactly? In this episode, we'll elaborate on value added taxes, also known as VAT. When should you pay them and when do you receive them?

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Part 6 | The Profits and loss accounts

What have you exactly earned with your company? The second most important document of your administration is the profit and loss account, also known as an income statement. It derives from the balance and tells you how well your business is doing.

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Balance and profit - loss account

Part 7 | Logs and journals

In the chapter Logs and journals, we take a better look under the hood of accounting. It's more theoretical, but creates a lot of order and understanding in your administration. 

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Part 8 | Investments

When you're investing for the long term, a number of special circumstances arise. In this lesson, we take a better look on how to deal with this in your administration, so the result isn't dramatically lower with an expensive investment.

 

Part 9 | Income tax

When your administration is in order, we can start filling out the annual income tax. We guide you through the tax form for entrepreneurs.

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Part 10 | Accounting programs

In this final lesson, we introduce you to bookkeeping on the computer. There are many kinds and options available. With a short demo of a free program, we show you how theory becomes practice. This is how we end this accounting series.

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Financial administration

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